In a recent thread UL mentioned online dating.


I discovered something that was weird for you online daters. I wish I did not know it. Some of these hook up places don’t protect privacy.


Here’s how I discovered it: years ago my neighborhood Association put up a list of community gardeners on their website. The list included our name, street address, phone number, our email address, and our birthdate. Yeah, that was stupid and I was annoyed and it took a while to get that ID theft worthy information down from the web after I bitched and moaned. But during the time it was up, I poked around Google using my fellow community gardeners’ info. One thing I tested was how much can I find out from someone’s email address.

Unfortunately I learned which one of my neighbors is a “bottom” in the hook up game. Also, he is “cut.” I wish I didnt know this! My neighbor used his regular email address for a hookup on a local website that was stupidly open about Google indexing.

My fault for snooping, I guess, although my own email address is out there available for searches and that is ok with me.

But, beware of the lesson in this cautionary tale. There are several levels of wrongness in this: my neighbor who didnt use a throwaway email address, the hookup site, and me.